Although many varieties of fasteners have been proposed to secure multiple wires into a bundle, the great majority of one-piece fasteners utilized today for bundling wires are of the general type disclosed in commonly assigned U.S. Pat. No. 3,908,233 to Caveney et al. This type of integrally molded plastic cable tie has a locking head and a strap portion secured within the head and is preferred in the art because it can be economically manufactured to provide a fastener that requires a minimal insertion force while possessing a high locking strength to securely bundle conductors enclosed therein. The cable tie disclosed in the '233 patent includes structural features that enable the strap to be released from the locking head when desired to enable the cable tie to be reused after an initial application.
Often it is desirable to attach a wire bundle to a mounting surface devoid of structural attachment features. A variety of cable tie supports have been proposed for securing a cable tie to the mounting surface. Reference may be had to U.S. Pat. Nos. 3,542,321, 3,672,615, and 3,913,876.
These supports typically comprise a plate that has an adhesive layer or mounting holes for securing the support to a mounting surface. These supports provide a structural means for locking the head of a cable tie to the support to form an interconnected unit. A wire bundle can then be effectively positioned relative to the interlocked cable tie and support, encircled with the strap of the cable tie and secured to the support by locking the strap within the head of the cable tie. These prior supports thus require careful manipulation of a loose piece cable tie into locking engagement with a support and the subsequent careful threading of the strap into the cable tie head.